Communication systems take many forms. In general, the purpose of a communication system is to transmit information-bearing signals from a source, located at one point, to a user destination, located at another point some distance away. A communication system generally consists of three basic components: transmitter, channel, and receiver. The transmitter has the function of processing the message signal into a form suitable for transmission over the channel. This processing of the message signal is referred to as modulation. The function of the channel is to provide a physical connection between the transmitter output and the receiver input. The function of the receiver is to process the received signal so as to produce an estimate of the original message signal. This processing of the received signal is referred to as demodulation.
One type of communication system is a multiple access spread-spectrum system. In a spread-spectrum system, a modulation technique is utilized in which a transmitted signal is spread over a wide frequency band within the communication channel. The frequency band is much wider than the minimum bandwidth required to transmit the information being sent. A voice signal, for example, can be sent with amplitude modulation (AM) in a bandwidth only twice that of the information itself. Other forms of modulation, such as low deviation frequency modulation (FM) or single sideband AM, also permit information to be transmitted in a bandwidth comparable to the bandwidth of the information itself. However, in a spread-spectrum system, the modulation of a signal to be transmitted often includes taking a baseband signal (e.g., a voice channel) with a bandwidth of only a few kilohertz, and distributing the signal to be transmitted over a frequency band that may be many megahertz wide. This is accomplished by modulating the signal to be transmitted with the information to be sent and with a wideband encoding signal.
Three general types of spread-spectrum communication techniques exist, including direct sequence modulation, frequency and/or time hopping modulation, and chirp modulation. In direct sequence modulation, a carrier signal is modulated by a digital code sequence whose bit rate is much higher than the information signal bandwidth.
Information (i.e. the message signal consisting of voice and/or data) can be embedded in the direct sequence spread-spectrum signal by several methods. One method is to add the information to the spreading code before it is used for spreading modulation. It will be noted that the information being sent must be in a digital form prior to adding it to the spreading code, because the combination of the spreading code and the information typically a binary code involves modulo-2 addition. Alternatively, the information or message signal may be used to modulate a carrier before spreading it.
These direct sequence spread-spectrum communication systems can readily be designed as multiple access communication systems. For example, a spread-spectrum system may be designed as a direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) system. In a DS-CDMA system, communication between two communication units is accomplished by spreading each transmitted signal over the frequency band of the communication channel with a unique user spreading code. As a result, transmitted signals are in the same frequency band of the communication channel and are separated only by unique user spreading codes. These unique user spreading codes preferably are orthogonal to one another such that the cross-correlation between the spreading codes is approximately zero.
Particular transmitted signals can be retrieved from the communication channel by despreading a signal representative of the sum of signals in the communication channel with a user spreading code related to the particular transmitted signal which is to be retrieved from the communication channel. Further, when the user spreading codes are orthogonal to one another, the received signal can be correlated with a particular user spreading code such that only the desired user signal related to the particular spreading code is enhanced while the other signals for all of the other users are not enhanced.
It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that several different spreading codes exist which can be used to separate data signals from one another in a DS-CDMA communication system. These spreading codes include but are not limited to pseudonoise (PN) codes and Walsh codes. A Walsh code corresponds to a single row or column of the Hadamard matrix.
Further it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that spreading codes can be used to channel code data signals. The data signals are channel coded to improve performance of the communication system by enabling transmitted signals to better withstand the effects of various channel impairments, such as noise, fading, and jamming. Typically, channel coding reduces the probability of bit error, and/or reduces the required signal to noise ratio usually expressed as error bits per noise density (i.e., E.sub.b /N.sub.o which is defined as the ratio of energy per information-bit to noise-spectral density), to recover the signal at the cost of expending more bandwidth than would otherwise be necessary to transmit the data signal. For example, Walsh codes can be used to channel code a data signal prior to modulation of the data signal for subsequent transmission. Similarly PN spreading codes can be used to channel code a data signal.
However, channel coding alone may not provide the required signal to noise ratio for some communication system designs which require the system to be able to handle a particular number of simultaneous communications (all having a minimum signal to noise ratio). This design constraint may be satisfied, in some instances, by designing the communication system to coherently detect transmitted signals rather than using non-coherent reception techniques. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that a coherent receiver requires less signal to noise ratio (in E.sub.b /N.sub.o) than that required by a non-coherent receiver having the same bit error rate (i.e., a particular design constraint denoting an acceptable interference level). Roughly speaking, there is a three deciBel (dB) difference between them for the Rayleigh fading channel. The advantage of the coherent receiver is more significant when diversity reception is used, because there is no combining loss for an optimal coherent receiver while there is always a combining loss for noncoherent receiver.
One such method for facilitating coherent detection of transmitted signals is to use a pilot signal. For example, in a cellular communication system the forward channel, or down-link, (i.e., from base station to mobile unit) may be coherently detected, if the base station transmits a pilot signal. Subsequently, all the mobile units use the pilot channel signal to estimate the channel phase and magnitude parameters. However, for the reverse channel, or up-link, (i.e., from mobile to base station), using such a common pilot signal is not feasible. As a result, those of ordinary skill in the art often assume that only non-coherent detection techniques are suitable for up-link communication.
As a result, many recent publications have focused on optimizing non-coherent reception in DS-CDMA systems. For example see the following articles.
A. Salmasi and K. S. Gilhousen, "On The System Design Aspects of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) Applied to Digital Cellular And Personal Communications Networks," Proc. of VTC'91, pp. 57-62, 1991.
F. Ling and D. Falconer, "Orthogonal/Convolutional Coding for Reverse Channel CDMA Communication," Proc. of VTC'92, pp. 63-66, May, 1992, Denver, Colo.
L. F. Chang and N. R. Sollenberger, "Comparison of Two Interleaving Techniques for CDMA Radio Communication Systems," Proc. of VTC'92, pp. 275-278, May, 1992, Denver, Colo.
Y. J. Liu, "Soft Decision Decoding for a Bit-Interleaved Convolutionally Encoded Code Division Multiple Access System over Rayleigh Fading Channel," Proc. of PIMRC'92, pp. 128-132, October 1992.
Each of these articles show that a substantial difference in performance exists when different coding, modulation, detection and interleaving techniques are used for up-link communication in cellular communication systems.
In the A. Salmasi and K. S. Gilhousen article, a DS-CDMA communication system is described which uses bit-by-bit interleaving within convolutional and orthogonal coding scheme to optimize non-coherent reception in DS-CDMA communication systems.
In the F. Ling and D. Falconer article as well as the L. F. Chang and N. R. Sollenberger article, an up-link DS-CDMA system that employs Walsh coding (i.e., orthogonal coding), non-coherent detection and using orthogonal symbol (i.e., word-by-word) interleaving instead of bit-by-bit interleaving was disclosed. The L. F. Chang and N. R. Sollenberger article shows that a word-by-word interleaved convolutional and orthogonal coding scheme requires about 1 to 1.4 dB less E.sub.b /N.sub.o than the similar bit-by-bit interleaving scheme described by in the A. Salmasi and K. S. Gilhousen article when the communication system which employs either scheme also utilizes power control of mobile communication units which move at different speeds (e.g., move at rates ranging from 0 to 100 kilometers per hour). While the word-by-word interleaving convolutional/orthogonal coding scheme has better performance than the bit-by-bit one, it has less implicit diversity than the latter. Moreover, it is still a non-coherent communication system and the combing loss can not be avoided.
Finally, the Y. J. Liu article describes a more sophisticated detection technique in which the performance of the up-link DS-CDMA communication system with Walsh coding and bit-level interleaving can be improved with a 4-port diversity combining without changing the interleaving method.
However, even in view of the above-described improvements for non-coherent communication systems, a need still exists for a communication system which employs coherent detection techniques.